Los Angeles, CA, April 24, 2012 – The Moot Court Honors Program at UCLA School of Law hosted its first annual UCLA Moot Court Cyber Crimes Competition, which is the first-ever national moot court competition devoted to cyber crime issues, from April 6 through 8, 2012. Created to complement and enhance UCLA’s role in training the next generation of cyber crime experts, the event attracted distinguished judges and entrants from across the United States and Canada.

Thomas W. Holm, director of the Lawyering Skills Clinical Program at UCLA School of Law, said, “Moot court competitions provide unique and meaningful opportunities to help students enhance their written and oral advocacy skills; we are especially excited to provide this learning opportunity in a developing and crucially important area of the law.”

The specific problem argued by the competitors covered the intersection of the Fourth Amendment and the Stored Communication Act. UCLA Law student Lisa Zang ’13, the incoming vice president in charge of the competition for the Moot Court Executive Board, explained, “The competition focused on a fact pattern based in the 2010 case of United States v. Warshak, dealing with the unconstitutional search and seizure of emails under the Stored Communications Act and whether they should be excluded as evidence at trial.”

The competition was sponsored by Norton Symantec, which provides AntiVirus, Internet security, and anti-spyware products for the home and business, and the Society for the Policing of Cyberspace (POLCYB), a not-for-profit society which seeks to enhance international partnerships among public and private professionals to prevent and combat crimes in cyberspace. In addition to UCLA School of Law, teams from Chapman University, George Washington University (overall winners), Santa Clara University and UC Davis participated. UCLA Law student, Brent Westcott ’13, was runner-up for the best brief in the competition. The second annual UCLA Moot Court Cyber Crimes Competition is scheduled for the spring of 2013.